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"The [Food Trust's] program has been a remarkable success: one part of it, increasing the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables in elementary schools, along with nutrition education, is credited with helping reduce the incidence of overweight students by 50 percent."

First Lady Michelle Obama, July 20, 2011: “It’s about organizations like The Food Trust who have been studying this issue [access to healthy, affordable food], and creating models for how to solve it.”

January 29, 2013 -- On a chilly November morning, the auditorium at the Philadelphia School District officewas sweltering. In what looked like a flash mob dance rehearsal, dozens of city school students wearing blue T-shirts with the slogan “Believe the Hype” bounced and swayed to the song Gangnam Style. Forming a sweaty, smiling Conga line, they weaved around the room as local health educator and rap artist Sterlen Barr shouted, “That’s what it means to be hype!”

Despite the mid-morning dance party, much of this youth summit meant to encourage students to promote healthy changes at their schools was focused on food. Before busting their moves, the students from 40 city schools enjoyed a breakfast of Greek yogurt and listened as administration officials gave shout-outs to school-based food successes, such as a salad sale at a North Philadelphia elementary school. There’s much to celebrate here. Over the past several years, Philadelphia has revamped its school food offerings with striking success.

December 10, 2012 -- After decades of rising childhood obesity rates, several American cities are reporting their first declines.

The trend has emerged in big cities like New York and Los Angeles, as well as smaller places like Anchorage, Alaska, and Kearney, Neb. The state of Mississippi has also registered a drop, but only among white students.

“It’s been nothing but bad news for 30 years, so the fact that we have any good news is a big story,” said Dr. Thomas Farley, the health commissioner in New York City, which reported a 5.5 percent decline in the number of obese schoolchildren from 2007 to 2011.

The drops are small, just 5 percent here in Philadelphia and 3 percent in Los Angeles. But experts say they are significant because they offer the first indication that the obesity epidemic, one of the nation’s most intractable health problems, may actually be reversing course.

January 31, 2013 -- The effort to provide consistent sources of fresh fruit and vegetables to the residents of Avondale and other Cincinnati neighborhoods lacking grocery stores has received a substantial boost.

The Center for Closing the Health Gap received a $150,000, two-year grant from the Greater Cincinnati Foundation to support the Do Right! Healthy Corner Store Network Initiative. It is the first local foundation to award a grant to address food deserts in Cincinnati – the lack of a grocery store as a consistent source of fresh fruit and vegetables.

"Philadelphia hasn’t allowed soda or sugary drinks in vending machines in schools since 2004, and its schools no longer have deep-fryers; the Food Trust (as I wrote in 2011) has pushed healthier food in corner stores. And New York has, among other things, banned trans fats from restaurants, made it easier for low-income people to shop at farmers’ markets and run a highly visible ad campaign that tells subway riders, for example, the number of miles they’d have to walk to account for that sugary drink.

Like Philadelphia, New York has come close to passing a soda tax, which has raised consciousness about the dangers of sugary drinks. The so-called Big Gulp Ban (which will not, sadly, affect actual Big Gulps) will be implemented in March; if it hangs around, New York’s obesity statistics may slide even further below the national average before too long.

These are dietary seat belts, and seat belts save lives. And only a jerk would say: “It’s a slippery slope toward telling me what to do. If I want to ride without a seat belt, it’s my right!”"

October 10, 2012 -- The Food Trust's executive director Yael Lehmann along with Partnership for a Healthier America's Larry Soler wrote an op-ed on how Philadelphia's comprehensive approach to obesity prevention may be a model to help curtail the complex problem of obesity.

September 18, 2012 -- Philadelphia was lauded for lowering obesity rates in public school children through a decade-long collaboration with The Food Trust. Black male students and Hispanic female students, two groups that had significantly higher obesity rates, have seen the greatest improvements.

"Pennsylvania is among the country's top ten states represented in the USDA's National Farmers Market Directory. I recently completed a trip through the Fruit Belt to the Lehigh Valley and Philadelphia to see how USDA's support of farmers market development is impacting communities and helping farmers across the Keystone State.

"Clark Park and The Food Trust, which operates 26 markets in Philadelphia, both play a critical role in the city's initiative to expand access to healthy food while also expanding economic opportunities for area farmers."